84 EVERYDAY ADVENTURES 



different kinds of birds, including siskin, fox sparrows, 

 and killdeer, and saw a buzzard sail on black-fringed 

 wings over the peaks. On a farmer's barn we saw a 

 goshawk nailed, its blue-gray back and finely penciled 

 breast unmistakable, even after the winter storms. 



As we entered the Gap, patches of snow showed 

 here and there, and a mad mountain brook of foam- 

 ing gray water came frothing and raging to meet us. 

 When we were full two hundred and fifty yards 

 away from the nest, the female raven flapped and 

 soared away. The nest itself was only thirty feet 

 from the ground, on a shelf protected by a protruding 

 ledge, some ten feet down from the top of the cliffs. 

 Rigging a rope to a tree, I managed to swarm up and 

 look at last on the eggs of a Northern raven. They 

 were three in number, a full clutch. The number 

 ranges from three to five, very rarely six, with one 

 instance of seven. The eggs themselves were half as 

 large again as those of a crow, and all different in 

 coloration. One was light-blue-flecked and speckled 

 with brown and lavender; another heavily marked 

 with lavender and greenish-brown ; while the last was 

 of a solid greenish-brown color. 



The nest itself faced the Gap, and from it one could 

 look clear across the forest to the settled country 

 beyond, while behind the cliff stretched a range of 

 low, unexplored mountains. The nest itself was made 

 of smaller sticks than the one I had seen over at 

 Seven Mountains, and had a double lining of brown 

 and white deer-hair, a fresh lining having been laid 

 over that of the year before. As we climbed to the 



